In a fast-paced restaurant environment,
every. second. counts.
Behind every seamless dining experience is a well-coordinated back-of-house team ensuring food is prepped, equipment is functioning, and safety protocols are met.
But when operations scale across multiple locations, inconsistencies emerge...
Corporate managers struggle to enforce standards, Location managers lack flexibility, and store associates are overwhelmed by lengthy, manual, disorganized checklists. Critical compliance issues often go unnoticed, and without a structured system, accountability is lost.
Understanding the People Behind the Process
To build accurate personas, we relied on a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods that provided deep insights into user behavior and challenges—since we couldn't get to the field due to limited time and resources
Stakeholder Interviews & SME Discussions
User Surveys & Feedback Analysis
We conducted virtual interviews with corporate operations teams, restaurant managers, and training leads. These stakeholders provided insight into the operational bottlenecks, compliance challenges, and day-to-day struggles of back-of-house teams.
For brands already using Ecolab Everyday (another Ecolab product that uses Checklists), we reviewed their analytics. This included common errors in compliance reporting, adoption rates of key features, etc.
Support Ticket & Internal Report Analysis
We reviewed customer support logs and internal reports to identify frequent complaints, usability friction points, and feature requests. This helped us validate the pain points faced by location managers and store associates.
These insights helped define the core problem areas and high-priority features, ensuring we balanced corporate oversight with local flexibility.
Discovered friction points like information overload, difficulty tracking corrective actions, and the need for better task visibility—leading to features like progressive disclosure and real-time compliance tracking in the final solution
Helped us prioritize fixes for known usability issues and guided UI design decisions, such as making compliance actions more intuitive.
Why do these Personas
even matter?
Each persona has unique but interconnected needs, making a one-size-fits-all approach impossible. The Corporate Manager prioritizes compliance and consistency, the Location Manager needs flexibility and control, and the Store Associate requires simplicity and guidance.
By keeping these personas in mind throughout the UX process, we ensured that the Checklists app addressed the distinct pain points of each role while improving operational efficiency across the board.
(!) Realization: A one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't work
Understanding our users was just the first step. With clear personas in place, the next challenge was ensuring that each role interacted with the system in a way that felt intuitive, efficient, and relevant to their specific responsibilities—corporate managers, location managers, and store associates all needed access to different levels of information and control.
To solve this, we designed a role-based information architecture, ensuring that each user saw only what they needed—no more, no less.
(While I can’t share the official, detailed information architecture, I’d be happy to discuss the thought process and approach in more detail over a call.)
The final product is a task management platform tailored to the unique needs of corporate managers, location managers, and store associates in restaurant operations. It enables corporate teams to enforce standardized checklists, gives location managers the flexibility to oversee and adapt tasks, and provides store associates with a simple, guided workflow for execution.
With automated compliance tracking, corrective action triggers, and real-time progress monitoring, the app ensures consistency, efficiency, and accountability while reducing friction in daily operations.
Designing a Task Management System That Works for Everyone
Structuring the System for Maximum Clarity
The app was divided into two core sections
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Checklist Management Page
(Corporate Managers Only)
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Create, manage, and assign standardized checklists across locations and roles.
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Maintain a repository of reusable checks to avoid duplication.
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Corporate Managers can lock the sequence for tasks that need to be completed in a particular order (e.g., washing strawberries before cutting them).
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Non-critical tasks could be reordered while being redistributed by Location Managers to their store associates to allow operational flexibility.
Corporate Managers can set up triggers for Follow-up questions in case of non-compliant answers reported. (If the temp of an equipment exceeds the 25–30°C range (e.g., recorded at 35°C), a follow-up prompts the associate to take corrective action and recheck it in 30 minutes.)
Questions can support .jpeg, .png, and .gif file types
Corporate can mark checks as required that an associate will have to provide a response in order to submit the list
Checks include various input types such as multiple choice, temperature readings, number and text inputs, number ranges, and image uploads.
2. Checklists Page
(Associates and Location Managers)
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Location managers receive assigned checklists but can reorder tasks (if permitted).
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Location managers can add ad hoc tasks for unexpected issues (e.g., “Replace broken lightbulb”).
Three outputs for non-compliant responses
1) Issue Resolved
Corrective action has been taken, and no further action is required.
2) Manager Notified
A compliance issue has been detected. The location manager has been alerted for review.
3) Follow-Up Required
Corrective action has been taken, but a follow-up check has been triggered to ensure resolution.
Associates see only their assigned tasks, reducing information overload.
Instead of overwhelming the project with too many screens, I’ve embedded a copy of the project Figma below for easy navigation. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!
Testing, Iterating, and Refining the Experience
Our testing and iteration process is still underway as we continue refining the system based on real-world feedback. Currently, we are actively gathering insights from restaurant teams to enhance usability, streamline workflows, and address emerging challenges.
While we can’t share detailed findings at this stage, ongoing improvements focus on optimizing task visibility, refining notification logic, and ensuring a seamless experience for all user roles.
The Impact We Project for Checklists Application
Early Insights from Prototype Testing
Automated follow-ups show promise in keeping teams accountable, though we’re still refining response logic and escalation flows.
Breaking checklists into step-by-step flows appears effective, but we’re still testing how it performs in high-pressure scenarios.
Early testers appreciate the structured oversight, but we're fine-tuning dashboard clarity and how compliance data is surfaced.
That's all I can share for now! If you’d like to learn more, feel free to reach out—I’d be happy to dive deeper into my process